Today marks one year since our comrade was arrested, when she was kidnapped by the Mossos d’Esquadra on the 13th of April 2016 in an joint operation with the German police. At the moment she is held in preventive arrest in the prison of Cologne, while the court case against her and another comrade (in the prison of Aachen) is in full course. They are accused of having robbed a branch of the Pax-Bank in Aachen in November 2014. Continue reading →

Here we publish a letter of our anarchist comrade who is locked up in German prison, in Köln, since several months. She is accused of bank robbery in Aachen and she is already facing the trial. She wrote this letter in the context of 8th of march, the international Day of women struggle.

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Down with patriarchy
On the social, racist and patriarchal problems faced by women in prison

It is generally well known that German society is rife with inequality. The upper classes are secure and cared for, they have no existential concerns and, despite all the wider problems of the world, they are able to offer their children a promising future which is not available to the lower classes. Whilst a small minority of people are able to get richer, the majority are left to exist on the bare minimum, working for a shitty low wage and constantly being pushed towards pointless consumption so that the profit driven system that we live in can continue to function. While some sun-bathe on their extravagantly expensive yachts in the Mediterranean, or get flown around the globe in their private jets, many cannot afford to go on holiday once in their lives, or to pay their rent or electricity bill or to buy a couple of new teeth. While the super-rich save their abundant wealth from taxes by securing it in off-shore tax havens or mailbox companies, for which they never face any serious judicial proceedings, the poor are doing months or years in prison for fines or petty crimes – for sums of money that the rich spend in minutes on a daily basis.Continue reading →

Pax-Bank, now “Pax-Bank eG, Bank of the Church and Caritas”, was founded in Cologne in 1917 as a bank cooperative of priests for the ecclesiastical community itself, under the principles of “self-help, own responsibility and self-management”. Referring to historical events, both the October 1917 revolution in Russia and the growing social tensions in Germany itself, which ended in the fall of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s monarchy and then transformed into the revolution of November 1918, it is not surprising that in those times, when the Catholic Church felt directly threatened by the “red tide” of the revolutionary uprisings, the church decides to protect its capital, in this case not only “spiritual” but rather economic, with the founding of said bank. In addition, in 1920, by virtue of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost all its colonies, where its “civilizing work” was evidently accompanied by “ardent missionary work”.

In the following years, Pax-Bank, unlike many other financial institutions, survived both the inflation following the end of the First World War and the first major financial crisis (unleashed by the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929). Although many German banks were affected by the economic crisis, in 1932 Pax-Bank stated simply “our profitability has not suffered any damage”.

Of course, the Pax-Bank is absolutely silent regarding its relations with the new political power that came to rule its homeland between 1933 and 1945, that is to say the Nazi party NSDAP, who, thanks to the unconditional support of German capital, was able to unleash its expansionist war machine, occupying up to half of the continent and perpetrating the Holocaust and the extermination of peoples considered inferior. Although it is true that the Catholic Church in Germany, bound by its bonds of faith with the Vatican rather than with Berlin, did not collaborate with Nazi crimes to such an extent as the biggest church in the country, the Protestant, its attitude, in general, was very passive. In 1941 its headquarters in Cologne was, luckily for the image of the bank, destroyed during Allied bombings, along with all its documents, protocols and minutes of previous years. However, the Pax-Bank does not shy away from boasting that it continued to reap significant profits even during the “turbulent war years”, as they themselves laconically describe those years.

In the period after the end of World War II and with the introduction of the Deutsche Mark as a new currency in 1948, Pax-Bank continued to grow and expand. In 1950 it began to train its future employees, while in 1952 it extended its services from churches and priests to monasteries, hospitals and orphanages.

Then, in 1958, a couple of new subsidiaries were opened, including the one in Aachen. From then until the end of the 20th century, this entity continued to grow and the introduction of the Euro as a European currency in 1999 did not affect the bank economically.

In the 21st century, specifically in 2001, the Pax-Bank opened its first headquarters abroad. The obvious choice was Rome, the offices were located near Vatican City and in this way, in the bank’s own words, it penetrates “the heart of Catholicism”. At this point in history the Vatican’s bank had already lost much of its credibility after some scandals in the 1980s and 1990s, and for that reason Pax-Bank, with its “transparent and ethical” banking image, tried to offer itself as an alternative in the world of Catholic capital.

In 2009 Pax-Bank opens an office in a monastery of German Catholic nuns in Jerusalem to “assist its clients in the Holy Land and strengthen the economic situation of Catholic institutions in that country”.

In spite of the ethical and moral Catholic foundations it tries to present to its faithful public, the Pax-Bank was not being exempt of its own scandals. In 2009, its investments in the US pharmacological company Wyeth, the producer of birth control pills, came to light. In the same year, investments in the British arms company BAE Systems, a producer of nuclear submarines and fighter jets, and British-American Tobacco Imperial, a potentate of the tobacco industry, were discovered. The Pax-Bank was quick to apologize to its clients and, as good Christians, its clients accepted the confession and knew how to forgive.

However, the Pax-Bank, that “mediator between God and Money”, as described by the German financial press, with its 8 subsidiaries, 200 employees and its capital of only about 2.3 billion euros, turns out to be an insignificant dwarf, compared to any of the financial colossi of the Spanish state. And if here (in “Spain”) no bank today is explicitly presented as a Catholic, it is because in fact they all are, in one way or another, linked to that huge “anonymous society” called the Church.

The history of savings banks in the Spanish state goes back to different predecessors, among them the Montes de Piedad, that is to say charities where the poor could obtain sums of money by pawning their belongings and thus being able to satisfy their most primary needs. Originally created in fifteenth-century Italy by the Franciscans, they began to spread to Spain in later centuries, the first of which was created in Dueñas in 1550. As socio-economic circumstances changed, savings banks were created within the Montes de Piedad to “foment savings among the lower classes”. The concept of a savings bank as we know it today has its origins in England, where Protestantism, opposed to the Catholic approaches of piety, considered that the improvement of the conditions of the working class could be reached through remuneration of savings. The first savings bank in the Spanish state was the one in Jerez in 1834, and the following year, a royal order established that savings banks were “to receive deposits that would accrue short-term interests in order to spread the spirit of economy and work”. In conclusion, the Spanish savings banks are born with some delay compared to other countries, and almost always linked to the former Montes de Piedad or created at the same time. Their main objectives were to “lead people’s savings towards investment and carry out social work in their respective territorial areas”, that is to say “if you work and pray, we will take care of your money and your soul”.

The close relations between the Church, banks and politics, although perhaps less evident today, especially thanks to countless mergers and name changes (in Spain banks never die, they simply merge…) and given the recent economic crisis, never ceased to exist. From the days of the Caixa Manlleu, which was founded in 1896 by local industrialists and … a bishop, until the beginning of the twenty-first century nothing changed much, at least at the level of economic power. Until the end of June 2016, the position of the president of La Caixa, the entity formed in 1990 by a merger of Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros de Catalunya y Baleares and Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Barcelona, was occupied by the great Catalan businessman Isidre Fainé i Casas, known for his strong religious convictions and ties to Opus Dei. Born in a humble neighbourhood in Manresa, he obtained a doctorate in economics from the University of Barcelona, business administration at Harvard and diplomacy at the University of Navarra, belonging to Opus Dei, and later became one of the most important bankers and entrepreneurs in the country. It is interesting how the Christians, at least those who were not eaten by the lions, inherited from their ancient Roman persecutors not only Latin, but also some of their slogans. Fainé i Casas, proud father of 8 children, resident of Sant Cugat del Vallès and since September 2016 the president of the multinational energy company Gas Natural, successfully adopts that old maxim: “pecunia non olet” (money doesn’t stink).

A few days ago in Italian prisons commenced the collection of samples destined to compose the National Archive for DNA, an institution run under the Minister of Internal Affairs who is busy compiling the genetic profile of all the individuals incarcerated, investigated, arrested or detained, along with the Dna found on crime scenes. This process is in accordance with a decision taken on a European level – sanctioned in 2005 by the treaty of Prüm, endorsed by Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Austria (and adopted by Italy in 2009) – as part of the the so-called “fight against terrorism and criminality”, which also extends beyond the European Union’s borders

In the course of awaiting the processes of several anarchists that are accused of having robbed banks in Aachen in 2013 and 2014, the prosecution office of Aachen, Germany, and their obedient voice, the media, use every chance available to advance their investigation. Whether it is on a juridical or a more subtle mediatic level, all these expressions are different tentacles of the same mechanism of repression. As usual the mainstream media are eager to get a “good” story by all means necessary, pervertedly scrutinizing people’s lives regardless of any ethics. They therefore do not hesitate in aiding the prosecution in spreading their fantastical tales. We have read these without much surprise – this is what journalists do after all –, have watched the hysterical spectacle that is being created around the implicated. Not being surprised however does not mean that we do not feel the need to clarify a few things that may have become blurred in the midst of this incessant stream of written and televised vomit.

After having ejaculated several articles in which the accused were portrayed according to the image the prosecution is trying to spread, the media has now decided it is time to create their own story. A rumour came to us through the grapevine that a certain Dutch journalist has posted a request on Indymedia asking for information concerning one of the accused. Apparently not satisfied with the image dictated by the prosecution, he searches for “people in the squatting movement of Amsterdam who could tell me something about X”, after which he states that whoever decides to snitch need not worry, as he “will not tell anyone these conversations have taken place.” Needless to say, we are disgusted by this. What should be said is that until this day no statement has been made by the accused towards neither the media nor the cops, and therefore – excuse us for pointing out the obvious – no statement should be made by anyone else either.

Let it be clear that the media and the police are two sides of the same coin, and work closely together in a most refined manner: the media hunts for a story, the prosecution throws out a few assumptions and character sketches, the media publishes these and thus transforms it into “truth”, et voilà, the prosecution is able to reproduce this “truth” and use the mediatic hunt against the implicated. For if the media say so, it must be true. For if the media states these are dangerous criminals on the run, they must be – etcetera ad nauseam. All these intimidation efforts only aim to reinforce the State’s accusations and bring the accused in the dock already convicted by a machine of lies, slander and State propaganda. These tactics are not limited to this case; they have endlessly reproduced themselves throughout history. The media are not only in service of repression, they too are at the very core of repression.

The collaboration between State and media has always been a recipe for misleading information, witch hunts and repression. The media play an important role in manipulating the public opinion, it assures the hegemony of support for the State, even when it is forced to drop the mask of “justice” and openly show its repressive mechanisms. The media excuses repression against everything or anyone that deviates from the norm, against those who do not function in a manner that is productive for or supportive of State and capital. Even, or perhaps especially in a democratic regime such as the one we live under, the media are intertwined with State propaganda; both offer us the illusion we have the choice to form an opinion, decide by whom we want to be oppressed. Yet these “choices” are always confined within the same rigid parameters of a totalitarian regime that does not allow any challenge to itself, to its logics, to its Power.

Democracy has refined the art of brainwashing, to the point of making media propaganda pass as coexistence of multiple opinions, as the transmission of unbiased information and “free” thinking. Its only aim however consists of maintaining the authority of the States and of capital. Of course democracy allows some slightly contradicting – but in fact complimentary – divergences of positions to exist, to create a self-reinforcing debate, but never a challenge to the existence of institutional authority itself. It creates a wilful participation based on the only claim that democracy is less worse than other totalitarian regimes, that we should count ourselves lucky to be living under a democratic regime.

However, every regime needs enemies in order to offer a solution for the problems they have created, to legitimize its repressive apparatus and ultimately legitimize itself. The search for and classification of enemies too is reinforced and exercised by the media. We have noted the silence and excuses of the media in the economic “crisis” and the troubles of the banks; we have also heard their sickening stories about “external enemies” rattling at the gates of Fortress Europe, accused of wanting to enjoy the fruits of western welfare – fruits that were won by centuries of pillaging by the same western countries. The media reinforce the depiction of people as mere numbers, reinforce the climate of fear in which western countries saturate themselves, and simultaneously show an ever increasing eagerness to praise new “security measures” supposed to keep out or lock up the unwanted, those who might cause the system to stagger.

Whether these unwanted denominate the thousands of people seeking a better life somewhere in the world or those who refuse to or cannot bow down to Power (or a combination of the two) is irrelevant. Murdering borders are being pulled up around its Fortress to keep out “refugees”, while inside the walls repression aims to silence and punish anyone who cannot be kept out or removed from the grounds. The media speak of external enemies, the State also seeks out its internal enemies. Obviously repression is not limited to anarchists, it does however often focus on those who decide to fight repression. For example, in The Hague several people were given an area ban because they dared to show solidarity and agitate in a neighbourhood in a time of control, of cameras, preventive arrests and searches. The ban concerns the Schilderswijk neighbourhood, where in the summer of 2015 riots took place several days in a row after cops had murdered someone. Anarchists were later accused of having incited the revolt. These days even questioning the system and calling out for struggle on a poster referring to the revolt is enough to be prosecuted for incitation.

Repressive blows however cannot be seen as single isolated events, do not exist in a vacuum. They form part of an aggressive multi-front campaign, which aims to achieve a further, distinct step in the devouring of freedom, in violently expressing the domination of the State. Whether it concerns justifying the militarization of streets, emergency measures, legitimizing building walls at borders, massacring people or pursuing its campaigns against rebels and revolutionaries, it certainly needs a voice that creates a reality and an atmosphere in which repression is possible, acceptable and hopefully unquestioned. These are the mechanisms of State propaganda, this is the purpose of the media. Media is an integral and essential part in authority guarding its control and dictating the dependence and approval it needs to rule. The millions of words and images that fill the screens and (toilet)papers are not an echo or reflection of reality, they form an integral part of the creation of that reality, of the imposition of the morals, rules and logics that permit the existence of the State.

When someone challenges this reality – the frame of authority itself –, when someone fights against it or simply refuses it, there is no mercy shown to the isolation or neutralization that by all means it unleashes against these individuals or groups. Not only through the sentences of the justice system, but also through the stigmatization of these individuals towards the rest of society, making sure they will carry their scarlet letter for the rest of their lives. The media aids the State in relying on public opinion to continue its work: judging, speculating and rendering as uncontagious as possible the ideas and practices that those incompatible with the system defend or are accused of. When the media portrays itself as a court room, it seeks out judges and prosecutors in the public. And this is where we need to be careful, where we need to consider our (perhaps subconscious) role in the continuation of these mechanisms, and ask ourselves how much we contribute to the speculation and creation of roles and a reality that only suits the narrative of domination.

Let’s not forget that repression can be fought in many areas. A court room and newspaper articles however are not among those, this is not the terrain of our struggles, methods and ideas. Let’s leave the speculation and distortion of reality to the experts – the State, cops, media, and their defenders –, let’s understand and intervene in reality on our own terms.

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for the spreading of information, echoes of solidarity, rage and reflexions about the case of three anarchists accused of bank robbery by the prosecution of Aachen, Germany

THE VERDICTS

on the 7th of June 2017 the court of Aachen sentenced one anarchist comrade to 7.5 years of prison, while the other one was acquitted for a bank robbery that took place in 2014.
in december 2016 an other anarchist comrade was acquitted of a bank robbery in Aachen that took place in 2013.